


Broken Pipes

by omnomeevee



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 12:34:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19376803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/omnomeevee/pseuds/omnomeevee
Summary: Athena calls for help when her kitchen floods. She is at a lose for words when she answers the door to see who came to help her.





	Broken Pipes

Athena sat, stressing over the piece she was writing, the constant dripping of the sink only making her headache worse. “Oh my _fucking_ god.” She grips at her hair as she ran her fingers through. Resting her elbow on the table, she pressed the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

“Oh that’s fucking it.” She pushed the laptop away from her and stomped to the kitchen. It had been dripping for too long. She crawled underneath the counter and twisted the small nozzle to stop the water flow.

One twist.

Two.

Three.

Snap.

Water rushed out on her face as she scrambled to get out from under the sink, knocking her head as she does. “Oh , you've got to be kidding me.” She lets out a long, drawn out sigh as the puddle reaches her feet. She doesn’t even bother to try and clean up the mess after she gets back from downstairs and turning off the water main. “Oh, Dubu… really…” She closes her eyes, seeing her dog walking in the water. Picking him up, she went upstairs to call Seren.

On the second ring, she picks up. “What’s up, Na?”

“My kitchen is flooded.”

“What? How?”

“I don’t want to talk about it, do you know if one of the guys can help me?”

“Um.. Yeah. I’ll call Mark-”

“Oh god he can’t fix it, I know he can’t.”

“I.. wasn’t calling him to come and fix it.. I’m sure he’ll know who to ask.”

“Oh, well, thank you.” Athena clicks the phone and curls in her bed, Dubu crawling up to her and plopping down. She drifts to sleep for a few hours, only to be woken up by the phone ringing. She flutters her eyes open, blinking to make the name clearer though her sleepy eyes. “Hello..?”

“Taeyong will be there in a little bit to help with the.. flooding.”

“O..Okay..” She tosses the phone back down on the bed, forcing herself to lay on her back. “Which one is Taeyong again?” questions Dubu, who is still sleeping. Getting up, she fixes her hair a bit and throws on something a little more presentable. She decided that she needs to clean up some of the water, just so no one hurts themselves. A light knock on the door might have gone unnoticed had she not been paying attention.

Athena wished she had remembered which one Taeyong was in her sleepy state, but when she opened the door, it was too late. Her eyes widened a bit as he stared back at her from the door frame. “Athena?” He questioned. The light wind tousled his hair, his eyebrows slightly raises, his eyes searching her face.

She tried to say a simple yes, but when she opened her mouth, nothing came out. Just a small breath escaped, nearly catching itself before. Say something, she thought, Oh come on you, you can at least say one word. But, she couldn’t, so she just resolved to nodding. Taeyong smiled to himself, tipping his head. “Can you… Show me where the problem is?” He laughed, as she nodded and moved aside to let him in the house. She closed the door behind her, taking a deep breathe before she turned around, to catch her wits. The words “over here” got stuck in her throat, his puppy like eyes scanning the room around him. He’s even prettier up close, she thought. Shaking her head, she walked past him, motioning him with her hand to follow her.

She had decided, on no whim of her own, that she just was going to play mute. Because every time she looked at him, he took her breath away, literally. There wasn’t even any use in trying.

Seeing the mess the kitchen was, puddles of water still there, Taeyong let out a chuckle. “So, what happened?”

Athena went over and grabbed the nozzle that snapped off, showing it to him with a pout. He nodded, setting down a bag of tools he had brought and digging through them. Grabbing a handful of things, we went underneath and started to get to work.

Athena stood around, aimlessly watching him as he did. The way he knew exactly what to do was attractive. She didn’t know whether or not he noticed she was still around as he hummed to himself, drowning out the clinks of him hitting the pipes. Athena let out a longing sign. Great, he was beautiful, could probably sing well, knew how to do handy work and she couldn’t say anything. She was embarrassed. She figured it was a bit strange to be standing there, only being able to see half of his body, but she couldn’t complain about that either. She shook her head and he popped his head out and looked at her. He held a flash light between his lips and grabbed it with two fingers so he could say something.

“You don’t mind if I talk, do you?” he spoke low, and Athena could feel her face heat up. She shook her head.

He nodded, laughing before he went back to work. Na sat down at her small kitchen table and listened to him. He told her about some of his favorite foods and the last movie he had seen, avoiding any spoilers in case she hadn’t seen it yet. He let her know what his favorite color was, and how he had dyed his hair a few different colors as well. That he loved dogs and that he wanted to work to better the lives of animals. Athena enjoyed listening to him, not just because his voice was nice, but because he was interesting.

He rambles about his friends, how they had all met. He mentioned how him and Mark we’re in the process of moving in with Johnny. Athena had met Mark several times now, and only really knew Johnny from all the talk Cordelia did about him. He mentioned how he liked that Seren had met Mark in a weird way. He also said he remembered seeing Athena at the restaurant that day, not knowing that she was Seren’s friend until she sat down with her. “You guys seemed awful quiet, not how I know Seren is now. She’s always laughing.” Athena’s face flushed realizing he had seen her. She wondered if that meant he was looking at her at some point. “I had planned to introduce myself, actually. But didn’t want to interrupt your lunch.” He sits up and looks at her, and Athena gets another good look at him.

His cut off shirt clung to him, but it wasn’t too tight. His hair still looked flawless, even after he had been underneath the sink for a while. He cracked a smile before he stood up. “I’ve gotta grab something else really fast, I’ll be back in a second.” He slips out of the door and Athena jumps up, ready to hide herself in her room but she knows better. She grabbed her phone to dial Seren. Before Seren could even say anything, Athena started, “You couldn’t have reminded me that Taeyong was the hot one?” She whispered into the phone.

“He’s there?” Seren laughs on the other side of the line.

“Don’t laugh! And yes, but he’s grabbing something.”

“That was fast.”

“Don’t change the subject! I forgot how to talk! This is embarrassing!”

“What? Why did you do that?”

“He’s pretty!” Athena says, a bit louder this time. “I wasn’t exactly expecting this pretty guy to walk up to my front door and have to welcome him in my house.” She paced into the front room from the dining room, peering out of the window to check and make sure he was still busy. He was, fumbling around in his trunk, clearly not sure where something was. “He was humming, he knows what he’s doing and he asked if he could talk while he worked. Ren, I haven’t said a word to him and I have no idea how to fix this.”

“Just talk?”

“It’s not that easy!” She was now talking in her normal voice, at full volume. It felt weird after having not said anything for so long. “From the moment he looked at me I just shut up. He’s got these soft puppy eyes and this contrasting voice. He smiled at me several times, his laugh is cute. He’s cute. He said he remembers seeing me at the restaurant and that was before you sat with me so it wasn’t even like he was watching you and Mark walk in. He said that he was going to introduce himself but didn’t want to interrupt. He’s sweet. He showed up at my house in a freaking cut off shirt. Seren, his arms- Oh... shit.” As Athena was rambling, she must have drown out the sound of the door opening again. When she turned, Taeyong stood there, a big smile on his face and laughed. “I gotta go, Ren.” She clicked the phone off and awkwardly smiled.

Taeyong just went back to working and when he finished he went a talked to Athena. Her dog jumped up and sat at his feet, as he bent down to pet him. “You know.. Maybe you and I can go out sometime.” Taeyong starts, now looking at Dubu and not Athena. Athena can hear her heartbeat pick up and she just nodded again.

She shook her head, “That sounds great. Maybe I.. Maybe I’ll actually talk then…” She mumbled.

“Perfect.” He got up, making his way towards the door. Athena followed to let him out. When he walked out, he turned around to look at her. “Maybe I’ll pretend I can’t talk that time around.” He said, as he walked off, smiling to himself.


End file.
